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Opinion | Time to showcase the real Hong Kong to draw tourists back
- As the success of other destinations shows, Hong Kong does not need to reinvent the wheel to attract mainland and foreign visitors
- The combined efforts of Cathay Pacific and the MTR Corporation can help promote the city’s unique local character
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Why you can trust SCMP
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With the “Hello Hong Kong” campaign failing to lift off and tourism numbers sagging, the search is continuing for answers. Blaming the Covid-19 pandemic has been a regular feature of this exercise, but it does not explain why cities such as Bangkok, Tokyo and Macau – all emerging from their own pandemic woes – are packed with visitors.
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Copying the approach of other destinations would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but that is a common bureaucratic response when ideas are scarce. Every place has its own unique character, and this is what excites visitors. No one visits Japan expecting sumo wrestlers to perform Swan Lake, entertaining as that would be.
Hong Kong still retains key attributes that drove inbound visitor numbers to 65 million in 2018, so why the plunge? The unrest of the intervening years certainly animated some people and depressed others, but visitors to the city have always enjoyed its unique mix of Western cosmopolitanism and Cantonese tradition with unrivalled street spectacle. Canned celebrity ads simply do not get this message across.
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It is not a matter of budgets but imagination. The tiny Faroe Islands’ engaging SheepView360 solar-powered cameras led to a rise in tourism. Queensland grabbed the world’s attention in 2009 with its “best job in the world” campaign to fill a six-month caretaker position to spotlight the Great Barrier Reef.
Switzerland had Robert de Niro complaining to Roger Federer that his country was “too perfect” for a film location. The wry banter ended with the line: “When you need a vacation without drama”. In 2020, Iceland’s “let it all out” campaign featured harried people screaming their lungs out in remote scenic locations. It was an instant hit and showcased the country with a sense of zany humour.
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